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G Herbo has been sentenced to three years of probation after pleading guilty to participating in a scam involving stolen credit card information – a fraud that prosecutors say netted the Chicago rapper almost $140,000 in private jet flights, vacation lodgings and luxury car rentals.
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Herbo, who’s had three top-10 albums on the Billboard 200 over the past four years, was sentenced by a Massachusetts federal judge Thursday after taking a plea deal last summer, which saw him plead guilty to one count of wire fraud conspiracy and one count of false statements to a federal official.
Prosecutors say Herbo (Herbert Wright) and others victimized real people and businesses by using stolen credit card info to fund an “extravagant lifestyle” that he flaunted on social media. That included $14,500 for a villa rental in Jamaica, and another $34,000 on renting cars like a Mercedes Benz 5560.
“He gave the impression that his use of private jets, luxury cars and tropical villas were the legitimate fruits of his booming rap career,” U.S. Attorney Joshua S. Levy said in a statement. “However, his lavish lifestyle was shamelessly built on deceit and fraud using stolen account information that inflicted substantial harm on numerous businesses, leaving a wake of victims burdened with financial losses.”
Thursday’s sentence was lighter than the one sought by prosecutors, who had asked the judge to send Herbo to federal prison for one year on top of three years of probation. In addition to probation, the rapper was also ordered to pay restitution and forfeiture of $139,968 for each count, as well as a $5,500 fine.
Herbo and five others were indicted in December 2020, charged with using real credit card info – including actual names, security codes and other private data – to successfully rack up charges. Prosecutors say businesses typically allowed the charges, leading to cardholders disputing them and credit card companies ultimately foisting the losses back on businesses.
The scam, operated from March 2017 through November 2018, was allegedly facilitated by an associate named Antonio Strong, whom Herbo would ask to procure vehicles (“whips”), or accommodation (“cribs”), in addition to other goods and services. One major charge was private jet travel; prosecutors say Herbo eventually used stolen cards to pay for four charters that totaled more than $80,000.
Herbo wasn’t the first hip hop star to face charges over credit card scamming. In 2013, Los Angeles rapper Guerilla Black was sentenced to more than nine years in prison over a fraud involving more than 27,000 stolen credit card numbers. And in 2019, federal prosecutors brought similar charges against Selfmade Kash, a Detroit rapper who had bragged in songs about being the “GOAT swiper”; he later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years of probation.
In Herbo’s case, prosecutors did not allege that that the rapper himself purchased stolen card information, but they said he knew that Strong was doing so and repeatedly sought him out for that purpose.
“Wright provided Strong with money, Wright received flights, vehicles, and accommodations from Strong using Illicit Account Information, and Wright and Strong communicated frequently concerning their illicit transactions,” prosecutors wrote in one legal filing.
In one example, prosecutors said that Strong had texted Herbo to remind him “Don’t forget DARREN IS MY NAME” when using the stolen information to book luxury vehicle rentals. Herbo then responded via text: “I gotchu bro.”
Initially, Herbo had also been facing two counts of aggravated identity theft, more serious charges that each would have carried a minimum two-year prison sentence if he had been convicted. But those charges were dropped under last summer’s plea deal.
A rep for the rapper did not immediately return a request for comment from Billboard.
LONDON — Less than three months after installing a new CEO, Utopia Music has once again reshuffled its executive ranks, appointing Michael Stebler to lead the Swiss-based company. Stebler, who represents the majority shareholder group behind Utopia Music, succeeds Alain Couttolenc, who has been in the top post since October.
Couttolenc switches to deputy CEO and chief commercial officer, while Drew Hill, who runs Utopia’s U.K.-based physical distribution businesses Utopia Distribution Services and Proper Music Group, has also been named deputy CEO in addition to his ongoing role as chief of distribution.
Pedro Lima, a former Swiss-based executive at global data and analytics company NielsenIQ, joins the firm as chief operating officer.
All appointments are effective immediately and were communicated to Utopia staff in an internal memo sent by the board of directors on Thursday (Jan. 11).
Michael Stebler
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Speaking exclusively to Billboard, Stebler says his extensive experience in the banking and financial industry will bring stability to the troubled firm and help steer it towards growth.
“We believe that the combination of Utopia’s strategy, our network and our financial support will bring the company to the next level,” he says.
Stebler’s appointment as CEO is his first executive post with Utopia, although he has held close ties with the company for several years through his role as managing director of Investment Advisors Zug AG, which operates on behalf of the majority shareholder group. Like Utopia Music, Investment Advisors Zug AG is headquartered in the scenic Swiss town of Zug, located close to Zurich.
Financial details around the size of investment or identities of investors are confidential says Stebler, but he does confirm that the investor group he heads recently increased its shareholding through a successful Series C funding round. Billboard understands that the investor group led by Strebler covered between 40-60% of the first tranche. A second tranche of C-round funding is underway.
The funds will be used to drive commercial growth, enhance product development and strengthen the company’s balance sheet, says the newly appointed CEO, who steps down from his role with Investment Advisors with immediate effect to focus on Utopia..
“We decided to invest further money into the company and we want to have control in the execution,” says Stebler, adding that “intense due diligence” was carried out by the group before increasing their investment.
“What we saw is a really strong backbone, a strong product and service offering, and great USP with the distribution business in the U.K.,” he says. “Otherwise we would have never made a further commitment and gone into a management position.”
FROM RAPID GROWTH TO SNAP DOWNSIZING
Utopia’s latest structural reorganization comes on the back of a highly turbulent few years for the tech company, which delivers financial services for labels, publishers and distributors and first made waves in the music industry by embarking on a frenetic buying spree of 15 companies between 2020 and 2022, including Lyric Financial, a Nashville-based provider of royalty-backed cash advances; and Proper Music Group, the United Kingdom’s leading independent physical music distributor.
Utopia’s period of rapid hyper-growth was followed by a just-as-quick downsizing, beginning with the axing of around 230 jobs in late 2022. More layoffs followed soon after, along with multiple executive departures, office closures, legal action over a stalled acquisition deal, late payments to staff, and the offloading of three of its businesses — Absolute Label Services, U.S.-based music database platform ROSTR and U.K.-based publisher Sentric.
As a result of those divestments and cost-cutting measures, the firm’s global workforce has been trimmed from approximately 1,200 staff to around 440.
“Today, we are in a much better position,” says Utopia co-founder and executive chairman Mattias Hjelmstedt. He says yearly cash burn has been reduced by 84 million Euros as a result of the changes and calls the new injection of C-round funding into the business “paramount” to getting Utopia on a stable footing.
Going forward, Hjelmstedt and Stebler say there are currently no plans to sell any of Utopia’s remaining businesses or to make further staff layoffs, but say that the firm will continue to evolve and finetune its offering to clients across the music industry.
“We believe that we are able to grow with our [current] head count and achieve profitability by mid or end of 2025,” says Stebler. “From an investor perspective, we prefer to invest more in substantial growth instead of cutting costs.”
One way that Utopia will look to do that is by rolling out its advance finance service, which provides music labels and clients with cash advances, to international markets, including the U.S., Continental Europe, Australia and New Zealand.
The company’s executive team is also looking to grow its core tech offering to clients across the music business. Those product services include cross-platform analytics, an AI-powered recommendation engine targeted at DSPs and streaming services, and Utopia’s royalty processing and payments system, TrackNClaim, which tracks music consumption on digital platforms and helps identify conflicts and unclaimed mechanical royalties.
THE PATH TO PROFITABILITY
Utopia’s other core businesses include its two U.K.-based physical music distribution entities: Proper Music Group, which provides distribution services for over 5,800 indie labels and service companies, and Utopia Distribution Services (formerly Cinram Novum), whose clients include Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and [PIAS].
According to its most recent accounts, Proper Music Group recorded revenue of £30.1 million ($38 million) for the nine-month period ending Dec. 31, down from £42 million ($53 million) in the prior 12-month accounting period, and a £1.9 million ($2.4 million) net loss in 2022. The company said lower sales and increased operating costs were behind the disappointing figures, while accounts for Utopia Distribution Services are yet to be filed in the U.K.
Deputy CEO Drew Hill, a long serving veteran of the U.K. physical distribution industry, says Proper is on track to return to profitability in 2024 as a result of significant investments Utopia has made in the sector.
They include last year’s opening of the U.K.’s biggest distribution warehouse for physical music and home entertainment — a 25,000-square meter facility in the town of Bicester with handling capacity of up to 250,000 units per day — as part of a £100 million ($125 million) long-term deal with international logistics company DP World.
“With the new facility we’ve been able to show all of our labels and clients just what Utopia can do,” says Hill. “From here, we can concentrate on selling Utopia’s services and products to our existing client base, which was always the plan, and use Proper and Utopia Distribution Services as funnel to those people. We’ve shown what we can do, built some amazing relationships. Now people are going to see what the true Utopia product is.”
At present, Proper and UDS generate the bulk of Utopia’s revenue but Strebler is confident that the structure is in place to help grow the firm’s other income streams so that it moves closer towards a 50/50 split between physical distribution and tech/financial services.
He declines to discuss revenues, but confirms Utopia’s two biggest markets are the U.K. and U.S. (Last year, Hjelmstedt told Billboard the firm generates over €100 million [$110 million] in global revenue a year, but this was prior to it offloading Sentric and Absolute.) The company says it nis focused on strengthening its balance sheet and is currently working through its outstanding debt and tax obligations.
“We have never been about disrupting or taking over the industry,” says Hjelmstedt. “It’s always been about helping the industry be better and grow. And the more that we have been able to talk to the different parts of the industry, and the more that they are now trusting us to solve those problems, the more likely we are to succeed with that mission.”
ByteDance will shut down its music streaming service Resso in India at the end of January, Billboard has confirmed with a ByteDance representative.
The decision, which was first reported by India-based outlet Moneycontrol, was made after Resso was removed from the Google Play and the Apple App stores in December on the orders of the Indian government. Billboard had not been able to determine the reason behind those removals at press time.
Notably, India was Resso’s last remaining market after the app was previously shuttered in Brazil and Indonesia.
“Unfortunately, owing to local market conditions, we can no longer continue to serve users of Resso in India,” said a ByteDance spokesperson in a statement sent to Billboard. “We have therefore taken the decision to shut down Resso and its associated operations on January 31st. Users will be offered a refund of their remaining subscription fees.”
Another factor working against Resso in India — where streaming competitors include such widely-used platforms as Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn and Wynk — was Sony Music’s removal of its catalog from the service in September 2022.
ByteDance, the Chinese-owned company behind TikTok, first launched Resso in India and Indonesia in March 2020, offering both free and paid tiers, before introducing it in Brazil later that year. In May 2023, ByteDance ended the free tier, making Resso a premium-only service.
In July, ByteDance announced it would roll out its new social music streaming service, TikTok Music, in Brazil and Indonesia, leading to the shutdown of Resso in both markets. Just two weeks later, TikTok Music was launched in closed beta in three additional countries: Mexico, Australia and Singapore, followed by a public launch in those markets in October.
ByteDance confirmed with Billboard that it has no plans to launch TikTok Music in India, where the government banned TikTok in June 2020, along with 58 other Chinese-owned apps, citing data privacy concerns. Those bans were made permanent in January 2021.
Warner Chappell Music has signed Kenya Grace to a global publishing administration agreement. Known best for her breakout single “Strangers,” she was the first to top Billboard’s Hot Dance/Electronic Songs Chart for a song written, produced and performed by a woman.
A self-taught talent, Grace was born in South Africa and raised in Southampton, England. In 2022, she released her first singles, including “Oranges,” “Afterparty Lover” and “Meteor,” and signed a deal with Warner Record’s dance label, Major Recordings. “Strangers” was her major label debut.
“I’m delighted to be working with Warner Chappell Music,” said Grace in a statement. “Songwriting is the most important part of my creativity, and I’m obsessed with great songs. The process of writing is my joy, art, and at times, therapy. There is so much I want to achieve as a writer, and with the Warner Chappell team behind me, I feel like I can achieve so much.”
Warner Chappell’s Gabz Landman, vp of A&R, and Xavier Champagne, senior director of urban A&R, added, “Kenya has set a remarkable path for herself, writing and producing her own music in its entirety. To be a record-breaking female producer, songwriter, artist, and DJ is a special and rare achievement. Her music is honest and true, and we couldn’t be more excited to join her on this journey.”
“Kenya is an incredible talent — highlighted by her global hit ‘Strangers,’” says Amber Davis, senior vp at Warner Chappell Music UK. “She is a special artist and has enjoyed a brilliant year breaking in the UK and around the world. We’re delighted to be working with her at Warner Chappell Music as we help her continue to develop into a leading songwriter.”
A year after the legal battle over Prince’s estate was finally settled, the music legend’s heirs are now suddenly back in court again, battling amongst each other over allegations that certain family members are trying to wrongfully seize control.
The lawsuit, made public Wednesday (Jan. 10) in Delaware court, amounts to a civil war among the members of Prince Legacy LLC, one of the two holding companies created to run the star’s $156 million estate. (Primary Wave, which owns the other half of the estate, is not involved in the dispute.)
The case was filed by L. Londell McMillan and Charles Spicer, two longtime Prince friends who serve as managers for Prince Legacy, over allegations that four of Prince’s family members have been improperly trying to force them out of the company. They say such a move not only violates the group’s operating agreement but would cause massive damage to efforts “to preserve and protect Prince’s legacy.”
“The Individual defendants lack any business and management experience, have no experience in the music and entertainment industries, and have no experience negotiating and managing high-level deals in the entertainment industry,” McMillan and Spicer wrote in the complaint, obtained by Billboard. “They have a documented history of infighting. Based on the amount and complexity of the work that Prince Legacy is involved with, they are simply not capable of stepping in and managing its business.”
The lawsuit targets Prince’s half-sisters Sharon Nelson and Norrine Nelson, as well as his niece Breanna Nelson and his nephew Allen Nelson. None of the defendants could immediately be located for comment, and attorneys who have previously represented them did not return requests for comment.
If Sharon and Norrine “install themselves” and oust McMillan and Spicer, the lawsuit claims that “their interference and intervention will make it impossible to carry on the business of Prince Legacy and will cause irreparable harm to the Company’s good will, existing relationships, and revenue streams.”
Prince died of a fentanyl overdose in April 2016 at the age of 57. Though legendary for his tight control over his intellectual property rights, the iconic artist died without a will, sparking a complex process known as probate in which courts decide how to disperse a deceased person’s estate. Six of Prince’s half-siblings were named as heirs, three of whom later sold their shares to Primary Wave.
The court case finally wrapped up in August 2022 when the estate was formally divided evenly between Prince Legacy (owned by McMillan, Spicer and the remaining heirs) and a similar company called Prince Oat Holdings LLC, which is owned entirely by Primary Wave. At the time, both sides vowed to work together to bring Prince’s music and legacy to a new generation of music fans.
But according to Wednesday’s lawsuit, tensions quickly rose at Prince Legacy behind closed doors. McMillan and Spicer, installed as managing members of the company, claim that Sharon became “disgruntled” because they refused to comply with her “unreasonable demands” about the operations of the estate, and was “offended” her actions were subject to approval from the rest of the company.
“For example, Sharon sought (unsuccessfully) to replace the entire staff of Paisley Park with individuals of her choosing and take charge of Paisley Park,” the lawsuit claims, referring to Prince’s famed Minnesota mansion. “Her demands for lavish events held at Paisley Park at the expense of Paisley Park were likewise rejected.”
Breanna, meanwhile, allegedly became displeased when similar efforts were rejected. Among other demands, the lawsuit claims she to tried to “appoint her son as an intern of Paisley Park in the marketing department” and make other key hires without consulting the company.
Rather than raise their grievances in an appropriate manner, McMillan and Spicer claim that Sharon and Breanna instead “harassed and disparaged” the two managers while demanding that they resign. They say Sharon threatened to publish “false allegations” and sue them unless they would step down.
Perhaps most notably, the lawsuit claims that both women then attempted to unilaterally sell their shares in the holding company to Primary Wave — a contentious subject that evokes the years of messy litigation and dealing that it took to finally resolve the estate case in the current 50-50 structure.
In the lawsuit, McMillan and Spicer say such a sale could not be made without unanimous consent of the members of Prince Legacy. Faced with that limitation, the lawsuit claims that the heirs have been trying to change the company’s bylaws — both to remove McMillan and Spicer as managers and to lower the threshold required to let a member sell their shares to a third party.
The lawsuit is seeking an immediate injunction, blocking any such changes from taking place on the grounds that it would leave the company “irreparably harmed” if allowed to proceed.
“The Individual Defendants’ conduct threatens the myriad business undertakings of Prince Legacy, currently being managed by McMillan and Spicer and threatens the Company’s relationship with third parties and its leverage in negotiating those deals,” the lawsuit says.
Alternative-pop artist Mod Sun has signed a management deal with Shelter Music Group, the company tells Billboard. The firm is home to iconic artists and acts including ZZ Top, Joe Perry and Fleetwood Mac. Mod Sun will be represented by Carl Stubner alongside Jackson Stubner and A&R James Robinson. “We at Shelter Music Group are beyond […]
Most songwriters understand the importance of affiliating with a performing rights organization (PRO), like ASCAP, BMI, GMR or SESAC in the United States — a critical step in making sure they can collect the royalties from public performances of songs they’ve written or cowritten. Even when signed to a publishing deal in which the publisher collects most revenue generated by songwriting, songwriters can still rely on collecting the writer’s share of public performance income from their PRO directly.
Is there an equivalent for artists who are signed to record labels? Enter neighboring rights!
“Neighboring rights” is simply the term used to refer to the public performance rights associated with a sound recording, which generates public performance royalties for artists and the sound recording copyright owner(s). The term comes from the concept that these rights are related to, or “neighbor,” the performance rights of songwriters. If you have performed on a sound recording (or are the owner or licensee of sound recording copyrights), you are likely eligible to receive “neighboring rights” royalties from the performance/broadcast of your recording around the world. This is where SoundExchange enters the conversation, but more on that below.
Here, we will detail what neighboring rights are and how artists can maximize their royalties collections both domestically and abroad to make sure they aren’t missing any money they are owed.
Music Copyright Primer
A short primer on music copyrights may be helpful before we dive into neighboring rights. Remember that any given musical work is comprised of two separate but equal components (each part receiving its own copyright): (i) the musical composition (i.e., the music and lyrics) and (ii) the sound recording of a musical composition. With neighboring rights, we are only looking at the recordings — more specifically, the contributions of the artists who performed, as well as the owners of the recordings.
Once a sound recording is created, the featured performers and the owner (or eventual licensee) of that sound recording are entitled, by laws in various countries around the world, to receive public performance royalties when the recording is publicly performed or broadcast. These are neighboring rights royalties.
While the U.S. does not recognize the full suite of neighboring rights in other countries (more on that below), there is a limited performance right in sound recordings that was established in the U.S. by the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act. That limited neighboring right entitles performers and sound recording owners/licensors to neighboring rights royalties when their sound recordings are publicly performed via “noninteractive digital streams” (e.g., Pandora, SiriusXM and others where the listener doesn’t choose the order of recordings played).
What Are Neighboring Rights?
The term “neighboring rights” is one that confuses musicians and their representatives alike, but as stated above, it simply refers to the public performance rights that accompany a copyright for a sound recording. For the beneficiaries of neighboring rights (artists who perform on sound recordings and the owners of the sound recording copyrights), royalties are generated when a sound recording is publicly performed or broadcast (i.e., not sold) via terrestrial radio (e.g., an FM station), web radio (e.g., SiriusXM), television, digital streaming platforms, and public venues like restaurants and clubs.
Neighboring rights are derived from the 1961 Rome Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organizations, where various countries negotiated how to compensate performers for exploitation of their sound recordings that they did not directly agree to. The Rome Convention provided that signatory countries (excluding the U.S., which is not a party to the Rome Convention) must establish their own rules and regulations governing the performance of sound recordings, including royalty rates, the types of uses that qualify and the transferability of performance rights. As a result, the rules and regulations surrounding neighboring rights vary from country to country because they are determined by local statutes.
However, most countries that recognize neighboring rights (if not all of them) require a royalty to be paid to both the featured performer and the owner of the copyright each time that sound recording is publicly performed or broadcast. Similar to how public performance royalties for musical compositions are split into the separate “writer’s share” and “publisher’s share,” in practice, the total pot of neighboring royalties is split 50-50 between the featured performer (and the non-featured performers), on one hand, and the rightsholder, on the other hand, with these halves being the so-called “featured performer’s share” and “label’s share” of neighboring rights royalties. In this way, neighboring rights complement the performance right for songwriters.
Under U.S. law, only certain performances of a sound recording via what are called “non-interactive digital streaming services” generate these neighboring rights royalties. In other words, the performance of a sound recording in a bar or restaurant in the U.S. does not generate the same royalties that a performance of that sound recording in certain foreign countries would, but, featured performers on sound recordings or a sound recording rightsholders in the U.S. may still be entitled to collect neighboring rights royalties from performances abroad.
What About SoundExchange?
As mentioned above, the U.S. only provides an exclusive right to publicly perform sound recordings via noninteractive digital streams, meaning that not all digital streams are equal. The key difference is whether a stream is interactive or noninteractive. For example, a stream of a sound recording on a platform like Pandora is noninteractive because the user does not get to choose much beyond the radio station that they listen to. However, streaming a sound recording on a platform like Apple Music is interactive because the user can choose how, when and how long to listen to that given sound recording. Therefore, a sound recording streamed on Pandora can earn digital performance royalties in the U.S., whereas a sound recording streamed on Spotify cannot. (Note: Spotify pays all rightsholders a license fee. It just isn’t obligated to also obtain a digital performance license from SoundExchange.)
SoundExchange is the only entity authorized by U.S. Law to administer, collect and distribute sound recording performance royalties. This means that if a platform like Pandora wants to obtain the rights to digitally stream sound recordings in the states, which would require the payment by Pandora of neighboring rights royalties to the applicable artists and sound recording owners, it has to go to SoundExchange for a license. Those license fees will make up the neighboring rights royalties generated in the U.S. and are payable by SoundExchange to the featured (and non-featured) artists and sound recording owners.
How Do I Collect Neighboring Rights Royalties?
Now that you know what they are, how do you actually collect these monies?
There are a few ways that featured performers and/or rightsholder in the United States can collect neighboring rights royalties abroad.
SoundExchange International Mandate. SoundExchange has collection agreements with its counterpart organizations abroad that allow it to collect neighboring rights royalties outside of the U.S. All the artist or rightsholder needs to do is register as a member and opt into the international mandate. This is the easiest and quickest option, and an added benefit is that SoundExchange pays out monthly.
Neighboring Rights Administration Agreements. There are several companies that specialize in neighboring rights administration and collection (e.g., Premier, Downtown) with which an artist or rightsholder can enter into a neighboring rights administration agreement. The artist or rightsholder authorizes the administrator to collect royalties on their behalf, and then it affiliates the artist or rightsholder with each society worldwide and collects neighboring rights royalties directly from all societies in exchange for an administration fee that gets deducted before the administrator pays out. Typically, neighboring rights administrators account quarterly or semiannually.
Affiliating Directly Abroad. Another option is for the artist or rightsholder to affiliate directly with the various neighboring rights societies in each territory abroad and authorize those societies to collect on their behalf in the applicable territory. Alternatively, in a manner akin to the SoundExchange international mandate, an artist or rightsholder could affiliate with one society in one territory and have that society collect worldwide. With either of these options, there would be no (or a small) administration fee, but the process for the former option entails a lot of work.
W. Joseph Anderson is a partner and Suna Izgi and Alex Spring are associates in Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP’s Los Angeles office. Manatt is a multidisciplinary, integrated national professional services firm with more than 60 years of experience in the entertainment industry, representing a broad spectrum of creators and companies across music, film and TV, games, sports, and more.
Billboard is partnering with Session Studio on its January SongDrop contest, which will be judged by ABBA‘s Björn Ulvaeus — with help from staffers from the magazine. Session Studio, which was founded by Ulvaeus, producer Max Martin and songwriter Niclas Molinder, makes a software platform that songwriters, producers and musicians can use to collaborate, distribute and claim credit for their contributions to recordings so they can collect royalties.
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The contest will run until Feb. 6, with the goal of identifying new talent. Ulvaeus will make the final decision on the winner, who’ll receive $1,000, a yearlong ProTools Ultimate Subscription, and a one-year membership to Billboard Pro, the definitive news source of information on the music industry, with more than 250 charts, a daily briefing and special reports. Two runners-up will also receive one-year memberships to Billboard Pro. The winners will also be announced on the Billboard website.
“I haven’t competed in a song contest since Eurovision in 1974, but I can still remember the excitement – and I guess it went pretty well,” said Ulvaeus, who 50 years ago famously won international exposure for his band at the Eurovision Song Contest.
Session Studio runs the SongDrop contest every month, in partnership with another company in the music business each time. The idea is to expose new songwriting talent to industry professionals, as well as music fans.
“At a time when so much about the music business is changing, it all still starts with the song,” says Billboard editorial director Hannah Karp. “With more distractions than ever competing for listeners’ attention, it’s more vital than ever to identify new songwriting talent that can cut through the noise. We hope this SongDrop contest will surface some of tomorrow’s hitmakers.”
Session Studio was founded to make it easier for streaming services to accurately identify the creators and rightsholders of compositions by offering them a way to register for credit as they work. The free app also allows users to assign songwriting credits so they can be tracked online. It has been recognized by various rightsholders and music services, including Universal Music Group, Spotify, TuneCore, SoundCloud, PPL, ASCAP and BMI.
Songwriters who are 18 and up may enter compositions that they have written themselves or with collaborators, including with AI tools. Click here for a complete list of rules.
Nate Albert has been appointed president of Giant Music, the independent record label launched in 2022 by Irving Azoff and his son Jeffrey Azoff.
A recording artist and creative A&R executive with major label experience, Albert joins the team at Giant which includes co-founder Shawn Holiday, Matt LaMotte and Charles Hamilton, Billboard can reveal.
When Giant Music was established as part of the Azoff Company, Holiday ran the venture’s day-to-day operations.
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“Partnering with Nate at Giant is the next step for us in building a world class label,” Holiday explains in a statement, issued Thursday (Jan. 11). “As an artist himself, he understands how to help artists achieve their dreams and that is what we do at Giant.”
Albert is co-founder, guitarist, songwriter and co-producer in ska punk band The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, which split in 2022 after more than 30 years, 11 albums and 10 EPs. Six of the band’s LPs cracked the Billboard 200, with 1997’s Let’s Face It peaking at No. 27 and logging 50 weeks total weeks on the chart.
He comes to Giant Music from Warner Records, where he developed and signed best new artist Grammy Award nominee Omar Apollo, Teddy Swims, and others. Before that, Albert was an A&R executive at Capitol Records and Republic Records, where he signed The Weeknd and Maggie Rogers, and worked on projects with Dua Lipa, Marshmello, Roddy Ricch, Troye Sivan and more.
“I am thrilled to help build a new label from an artist’s and manager’s perspective in 2024,” he comments on his new role. “Irving and Jeffrey have a sterling reputation as defenders of artists’ rights and that spirit and point of view will continue to thrive at Giant Music.”
The goal, he continues, “is not just to create another option for the creative community, but to create a place for the creative community to call home.”
Giant Music revives the Giant name for the Azoffs, with the elder Azoff launching Giant Records in 1990 as a joint venture with Warner Bros. Records. The label went on to work with artists including MC Hammer and Color Me Badd.
Based in Los Angeles, The Azoff Company’s portfolio includes Full Stop Management, Global Music Rights, Oak View Group, Iconic Artists Group, and Giant Music, which boasts the motto: “Creativity, transparency, and passion.”
Giant’s roster includes Ayleen Valentine, Cash Cobain and Fendida Rappa.
Google has laid off hundreds of employees working on its hardware, voice assistance and engineering teams as part of cost-cutting measures.
The cuts come as Google looks towards “responsibly investing in our company’s biggest priorities and the significant opportunities ahead,” the company said in a statement.
“Some teams are continuing to make these kinds of organizational changes, which include some role eliminations globally,” it said.
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Google earlier said it was eliminating a few hundred roles, with most of the impact on its augmented reality hardware team.
The cuts follow pledges by executives of Google and its parent company Alphabet to reduce costs. A year ago, Google said it would lay off 12,000 employees or around 6% of its workforce.
In a post on X — previously known as Twitter — the Alphabet Workers Union described the job cuts as “another round of needless layoffs.”
“Our members and teammates work hard every day to build great products for our users, and the company cannot continue to fire our coworkers while making billions every quarter,” the union wrote. “We won’t stop fighting until our jobs are safe!”
Google is not the only technology company cutting back. In the past year, Meta — the parent company of Facebook — has slashed more than 20,000 jobs to reassure investors. Meta’s stock price gained about 178% in 2023.
Spotify said in December that it was axing 17% of its global workforce, the music streaming service’s third round of layoffs in 2023 as it moved to slash costs and improve its profitability.
Earlier this week, Amazon laid off hundreds of employees in its Prime Video and studios units. It also will lay off about 500 employees who work on its livestreaming platform Twitch.
Amazon has cut thousands of jobs after a hiring surge during the pandemic. In March, Amazon announced that it planned to lay off 9,000 employees, on top of 18,000 employees it said that it would lay off in January 2023.
Google is currently locked in a fierce rivalry with Microsoft as both firms strive to lead in the artificial intelligence domain.
Microsoft has stepped up its artificial intelligence offerings to rival Google’s. In September, Microsoft introduced a Copilot feature that incorporates artificial intelligence into products like search engine Bing, browser Edge as well as Windows for its corporate customers.